The present invention relates to the field of weapons capable of firing a large series of rounds within a short period of time, herein referred to as an automatic weapon or a semi-automatic weapon, and in particular a rate controller for operating and controlling from a remote location the weapon and the rate at which rounds are fired by the weapon.
More particular, the invention relates to a rate controller for controlling from a remote location the rate at which rounds are fired by the weapon employing a solenoid operated trigger mechanism.
Crew served automatic weapons are primarily intended for suppression fire and as such, the dispersion can be fairly high. This is partly due to the weapon itself, but mostly due to the weapon mount and the soldier firing the weapon. When mounted on a remotely controlled weapon station, the weapon is mounted in a significantly more stable environment and the dispersion of the weapon itself becomes significant.
The firing rate of recoil- or gas-operated weapons is determined by the dynamics of the weapon itself, as well as external factors such as ammunition and weapon mount, and there will be a natural spread of the firing rate due to variations in the above parameters. The firing rate can be reduced by firing single shots in a controlled sequence with a fixed frequency.
Related art is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,960, U.S. Pat. No. 3,451,307, U.S. Pat. No. 6,976,416, US2002/0179077, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,510,844.